The Original Trilogy Coming FREE, Deluxe Double Album Soundtrack Upgrade

Exciting news today: every backer of The Bard’s Tale IV ($20 or more) will get free digital copies of the original The Bard’s Tale, The Bard’s Tale II: The Destiny Knight and The Bard’s Tale III: Thief of Fate!

The originals! We can’t get you these boxes but don’t forget The Bard’s Tale IV comes in this style album box in the $65 tier. Photo credit @joefielderIII

Even before we launched the Kickstarter, we were constantly asked "can you do a re-release of the original The Bard’s Tale trilogy" and we heard you. We have been hard at work behind the scenes looking at ways to make it happen! The first step was getting Electronic Arts to sign on as they own the publishing rights to the old games, having originally brought them to the market in the mid-80s. EA very graciously had no objections at all, a big thanks to them for their help in making this giveaway happen.

The emulated versions of the classic games will be released for free at the end of the campaign for every backer at $20 or higher, and distributed through our backer web site. This is our way of giving our thanks back to you for all your support and helping us bring back The Bard's Tale.

Some of you may know that the emulated versions of these games work on most modern machines, but are a little rough around the edges. Thus, we have an agreement with the original The Bard’s Tale III programmer Rebecca "Burger" Heineman and her company Olde Sküül to update the games for modern machines! She will be working to make the games run natively, without needing emulators, on PC or Mac. This re-releases will be primarily based on the Apple IIGS versions of the games, along with updated art.

We’ll get you the emulated versions of the trilogy as soon as the Kickstarter ends and our backer site is up. Meanwhile, Rebecca will be working on the updated versions of the games and if that goes well we’ll get you those as soon as she delivers them to us, also for free! As we’re not working on these versions ourselves we cannot give an ETA or guarantee on their release, we’ll all be waiting for Rebecca to deliver us an upgraded version worthy of the name!

Of course, playing the originals will not be necessary to follow the story of The Bard’s Tale IV, but we hope you’ll jump on the opportunity to experience them as thousands of fans did back in the day!

Deluxe Double Album Soundtrack and Add-Ons!

We've been looking at our plans for the soundtrack and realized that with multiple musicians working on this (including the very talented Julie Fowlis who you heard in the in-engine video) we're simply going to have too many songs to put on one CD. So we're expanding the soundtrack to a Deluxe Double Album!

If your tier already contains the soundtrack (that is tiers $50, $70 and $95 and up), whether digital or physical, you are now upgraded to the Deluxe Double Album! Physical tiers receive two CDs and digital tiers receive both albums digitally.

The soundtrack has also been one of our most-requested add-ons, so we're now making these digital add-ons available:

$8 - Digital The Bard's Tale IV Base Soundtrack

$15 - Digital The Bard's Tale Iv Deluxe Double Album

New Tiers

We have rolled out new reward tiers for you guys to choose from. First up, we have the $33 Guide to Skara Brae tier that includes the Digital Guidebook and Digital Artbook, and by popular demand, we have brought back the Supreme Box Collector tier at $675 for those who want to fill out their shelves!

Comments

Make the first 3 open source!. So that people can work on a bunch of new versions if they like. I would dig a phone version. Or just a straight html version. Or mod-able version where people can update all the art.

Only read the update now. I was really excited at the beginning, expecting based on the title that the original trilogy was made free for all, then was disappointed to learn that it was only made free for backers. Still, it's good to have an updated version of the originals, and like Raphael said, I hope it makes it to GOG.

Superbacker

Maybe this is a dumb question, but I'm not afraid of asking dumb questions so I'll ask it anyway: Why is there no reward tier that gives me the benefits of the Tormented Irradiated Bard ($75) reward and the Supreme Digital Collector ($70) reward? I base that question on the Tumblr rewards matrix above. Do I need to make two separate pledges to get both sets of rewards? I know I can get some of the extras as ad-ons, but not all of them. So what's the right answer here?

I don't want to sound ungrateful because this is really cool and much work for you and will please plenty of backers, but I for one don't care about the free software like WL2/Witcher (got it already) or the previous Bard's Tales (I don't play old games, I don't even have time to play most of the new games).

What I really would love in your updates (and you could increase their frequency btw) is info about the game. And all the other interesting stuff in all the other awesome kickstarter campaigns. Like what are you planning on doing, mechanics, concept art, world, infos on the people who are working on it etc.

I have a question about the Digital Guidebook in the $33 and $40 tiers. Is it different from the Digital Strategy Guide offered in some of the other tiers, or just a smaller version of the Strategy Guide?

Also, I'm really glad to see Rebecca is involved in the project! She is as important to Bard's Tale as Brian is, in my opinion.

Back in the day I played through Tales of the Unknown on the Apple IIGS after originally enjoying the 8-bit Apple ][ version. It was an AMAZING upgrade with beautiful graphics and sound. The pinnacle of Bard's tale goodness!

Great news to hear that Rebecca Heineman will refresh the game. So cool.

This KS just gets better and better...;) I am intrigued by the BT1,2 & 3 adaptations--thank goodness you aren't using the DOS versions...! I wasn't so interested to hear the Bard song's in "whistling speaker beep" mode again...;) I don't know a thing about the AppleIIGS versions of the software, but originally I bought the DOS versions (because they came out first) & then the Amiga versions--which were light-years better. Mention of the IIGS takes me back--in the latter half of the 80's I had narrowed my choice of a new computer down to two: the AppleII GS & the C= Amiga. I didn't know anything about them @ the time so I actually called about six major software publishers (including EA) and asked for their recommendations between the Apple & the C=. Unanimously, they all steered me to the Amiga--which started me on my 8-year Amiga odyssey--those were "flying by seat of your pants" days...! So much fun...! At any rate, I wonder what the difference is between the IIGS and the Amiga versions, if anything...!

I don't back a lot KS game campaigns with mentions of a GNU/Linux version because we get treated like we're second-class, but I trust you guys will deliver. I'm grateful that you're giving away the first three games and do hope they will be available for GNU/Linux. I built my gaming PC recently with zero intentions of ever installing Windows on it. Please support us.

Also, PC is NOT a synonym for Windows. This misconception has to stop.

Superbacker

Yes, please support Linux for these updated versions. I already have the originals both on 3.5" floppies for my Amiga and having bought the 2004 release on Steam. The emulated versions in the Steam release don't work from in-game on Linux though.

Thank you for the wonderful news! Also, big kudos to EA for the original trilogy, that's one classy move!

And inXile, please, please release that Julie Fowlis song from the in-engine trailer in its entirety (preferably in downloadable format, but Soundcloud etc. willl do). It's an absolutely gorgeous song, and you'd make a lot of people really happy - and I'm sure it'd only draw in more people to join our campaign!

As this is a sequel to the series, and as I have imported my Tales of the Unknown characters into Knight of Destiny and then into Thief of Fate, and as you're giving everyone of us the original series to do the same some decades later, you're somewhat bound now to allow importing the Thief of Fate characters into The Bard's Tale IV, don't you think? ;) My party was nonhuman except for the bard, so chances are they're still in good health 150years after the last adventure.

Would love a Linux port too, well, if that doesn't add too much work of course :)
Also, it's probably out of scope but... All those low-resolution games do look quite bad on our modern LCDs if there's just a bilinear filtering... In my experience, *amazing* results can be achieved with some very simple pixel shaders that kind of mimic a CRT screen. It can suprisingly make a 320x240 game look GOOD on a modern LCD (instead of ugly or tolerable) :)

Just my 2 cents : again, as this is a bonus, I guess not much time can be spent on it :)

Superb news!
Now make sure we can transfer the party all the way from 1 - 3. Weren't exactly happy with the iPad version when I discovered the limitations after completing two out of three of the classics.
>:(

I am... giddy! I've got Destiny Knight, Thief of Fate and Construction Set down the basement, but no reliable FDD. it's gonna be so awesome to share these with my son. Don't worry, he's got a surprising affinity for old games. Pretty sure I've still got the Thief of Fate word wheel, but hoping I won't have to dig it out :)

Guys, updated art does not mean modern graphics. The remakes probably won't even look as good as Lands of Lore. But, they will hopefully be a bit more animated and colorful and run stable on modern hardware.

Rebecca "Burger" seems like a really interesting and passionate individual. I imagine she will do a great job with the updated versions. If anyone want's some fun information on her, check out her interview with Matt Chat... https://youtu.be/F4WuTp4faKA